The Persistence of the Blue Bar - How Do They Do It?

[Scuiry]

In field guides the Rock Dove is typically depicted as a standard gray blue bar. Apparently this was the original color/pattern before it was domesticated into various strains. Does anyone know how the blue bar pattern has survived so long in the wild? You would think that with so many color varieties released into the urban wild it would have been obliterated long ago.

Are there any studies on the breeding patterns of feral pigeons that would explain this persistent color pattern?

Best to all,

d.

[Pigeonrh]

Hi,
Well this Q is right up my ally, the standard bar or wild type, it's a pattern and not a color and it was the first to appear, so there is many of them, each pigeon, it doesn't matter of the breed or what the birds color is each of these birds carrys atleast one pattern and the most it can carry is two, barless,bar,check and t-pattern, so if you take all the wild blue bars in the world at kill them(not to sound mean or anything), there would still be millions of birds that carry the gene, so what I'm trying to say is if there is a male pigeon that carrys bar and a female pigeon that carrys bar and they mate, half of there young will end up being blue bars.
Do you get what I'm saying or would you like me to explain it a little better.


Ryan,

[Nancy]

you've got my attention. Please explain a little more. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Nancy

[Scuiry]

It sounds like what you are saying is the Blue Bar is something like a recessive trait and that's why it persists even in pairs that do not have it themselves.

d.

[turmani]

Scuiry,

In the first place, I have to tell you that the field guides are misleading and their classication of common pigeons as "Rock Doves" (Columba livia) is NOT correct. True Rock Doves, as a wild species, are practically non existant today and ALL common pigeons in North America are the descedents of escapees from lofts and lost pigeons. Consequently, they are Feral Pigeons and not Rock Doves - there is a difference.

As far as the Blue Bar coloration, this was thought, by Darwin to be representitive of the root stock of all Domestic breeds and this color is common in many breeds. Genetically, it is regarded as "Wild Type" and is used to measure the inheritence of other colors and factors. So for example, when we say that Ash Red is dominant, what is meant is that it is dominant to a Blue Bar.

The thing to really keep in mind is that a wild flock's genepool is representitive of whatever lost Domestics survived to breed in the wild.

In most cases, the vast majority of wild flocks are fueled largely by lost Racing Homers and what is the most common color in Racing Homers? It is of course, Blue Bar, followed closely by Blue Checkers and then Red Checkers. Overall, these are also the three most common colors of most ferals and it is due to scores of lost Racing Homers.

Now in my area, things are different.

Racing Homers were never the dominant breed here and they were outnumbered 20 to 1 by Birmingham Rollers. Now, guess what colors we have in the parks? We have mainly grizzles, tortoiseshells and splashes. Fact is, we bred over 4000 Rollers in this city alone each year and plenty were lost. Sometimes whole kits were lost and these MIA's filed into the park.

My nearest feral flock is a mile down the road at our fairgrounds. A large majority of these birds are actually Rec. Reds and Rec. Yellows. Reason? I had a bloodline of Rec. Yellow Birminghams for YEARS and there was a problem in the bloodline where they were hard to settle. I lost many young birds that simply just up and flew away before they had gained a sense of home. Guess where those wound up?

To top it off, I think its safe to say that over 75% of our ferals in this town exhibit at least minor degrees of tumbling or rolling. This is simply because almost the entire lot are largely descended from lost rollers.

Another story, my late partner lived in the next city over (small town) and they have a large feral flock in town. He specialized in rare colors, mainly in Dom. Opal and Reduced. My late partner didn't cull, but he bred large quantities of these rare colored birds to get the full range and he used to say "God, I need to get rid of 50 birds!". One day an idea struck him ...

He decided that he was sick of seeing Grizzles and Blue Bars in the park and he decided to change this. yearly he dumped his rare colored birds into wild flocks. If he saw a barn full of pigeons, he'd take note and dump some "new blood" into them.

He died very tragically before he saw the end result, but today, a large number of the ferals in Rogue River, Oregon are Opal and Recuded factored, along with quite a number of dilutes and others.

On another side, I know of a huge flock 20 miles south of me that are largely white barred, bronze barred, white laced and with short muffs. How did that happen? Well, a friend of mine once had a tremendous collection of differing German Toy breeds. 15 or so breeds and one summer he went on vacation to Germany for a few weeks and hired a caretaker.

When he got home, all his loft doors were open and he only had a few pigeons left. His caretaker decided they were too much trouble, so he threw 200 pounds of grain on the ground and propped the loft doors open!
German Toy breeds are not what you would call "well adjusted". They are barely domestic, excessively wild and have one of the poorest senses of home among all breeds. Most of his birds scattered.

Years later, wierd stuff began to appear in the ferals living around a dairy 5-6 miles from him. From what I could figure, alot of his birds flew up the mountain he lived near and over the top into the next valley and took up in alot of old barns and scrounged grain off the dairy.

Not too many blue bars over there!

So to answer your question, whatever color dominates among lost domestics is what is going to dominate in the wild.

[Pigeonrh]

Hi,
Well I'd say turmani hit the nail on the head with that one, I'd love to see them flocks your talking about, we did have flocks of cool colored wild birds around here but now for some reason we don't anymore?
Plus, you have to remember most fancy breeds of pigeons can't live in the wild for long and cents they have lots more colors, then homer and some rollers, you don't get any other colors, but cents the flocks around turmani are made mostly of homers and rollers(the more harder of the breeds) they were able to handle being in the wild.
You have any pic's of these birds?

Ryan

[turmani]

Ryan,

I have some video SOMEWHERE around here. If I can locate the right tape in the right box, I'll JPG some still frames for you.

About color changes. There is another element involved. If we accept Darwin's theory (and most do) the majority of Domestic breeds originated through Columba liva (Western Rock Doves) which was a common looking pigeon of a Blue Barred coloration with a white rump and albescent strips (those are the white strips alot of blue bars and Rec Reds have on their outer tail feathers). Continued crossbreeding in a natural selection state (in the wild, or without interference) among most Domestic breeds will generally almost always result in reversion back to the so called "Wild Type" (Blue Bars) at some point.

Also, most of our "rare colors" are generally reccessive mutations of the Wild Type and consequently can dissappear if they don't make up the majority. In addittion, even alot of the Dominant mutants have genetic weaknesses linked to them. (ie. Dom. Opal in homozygous form is generally genetically lethal, homozygous Almonds often have irregular pupils and many have so called "bladder eyes" and poor vision).

To make matters worse, alot of fancy breeds also have inherent weaknesses that prevent them from successful survival in the wild and if they do produce, their youngsters have also inherited these traits.

So for example, West Of Englands are our #2 local breed, but they haven't expressed an impact on wild flocks. I think this is due to several factors, but the two that stick out (besides the big muffs) is that show type West Of Englands are LOADED with the clumsy gene (which is portrayed as a pigeon who flies with its legs out as if landing. Presumably, "clumsy" is really a genetic vision defect). Also, several prominent bloodlines of Wests also carry Ataxia (a recessive gene that is responsible for the deformation of the frontal lobe. Essentally, it is genetic retardation. My late partner cultivated dozens for research.
Add on top of that, problems with certain colors (Dom. Opal, Almond, etc) and although there is plenty of opportunity for Wests to add to local feral populations and we do often see Wests flying loose with them, they have not made a genetic impact.

I've also seen other breeds wind up in local parks. Most of this is due to truly irresponsible local breeders who breed far too many pigeons in hopes of producing one Champion, who then dump the undesireables into parks. Yearly, I probaly get 20 calls to come rescue the ones that wind up getting into trouble. (One summer, someone had dumped 50+ fantails into the city park and the parks dept. had me down there trapping them because far too many were getting hit by cars, were too weak to fly, etc). But naturally, save the tougher breeds, most of these "implants" do not make it.